GRK AND THE HOT DOG TRAIL

Timothy Malt and his cheerful dog Grk find themselves in New York City in the third installment in this comic adventure series (A Dog Called Grk, 2006; Grk and the Pelotti Gang, 2007). A solid-gold dachshund statue, once owned by the expatriate Stanislavian king, is stolen from an exhibition of Eastern European art, and Tim figures out who has it. The aptly named Dr. Wiener is a hot-dog tycoon whose collection of dachshund-inspired art includes stolen paintings by Holbein, Leonardo and Picasso. Tim, with Grk in tow, runs Dr. Wiener to ground, and puts himself and Grk several times in harm’s way (encountering bullets, poison gas grenades, runaway construction equipment and cauldrons of boiling hot-dog innards) before his heroism pays off. Slightly breathless and silly but a page-turning escapade for middle-grade readers, nevertheless. (Fiction. 9-12)